Trump Welcomes The National Champion Clemson Tigers To The White House

Ford Springer | Contributor

Donald Trump welcomed the Clemson Tigers to the White House Monday afternoon in recognition of the team’s College Football Playoff National Championship that the president called one for “the record books.”

(Photo credit: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)

Trump addressed a large group of fans and media members on the South Lawn of the White House before a huge group of Clemson players and football staff that filled the steps behind the podium.

“Clemson Tigers, you gave America an incredible game that will go down in the record books as one of the hardest fought and probably one of the most exciting games ever played,” Trump began.

“All of you played with such tremendous heart and determination. You never, ever gave up. You can never give up in life,” Trump advised the team. “And it all paid off. With your grit and resolve, you proved one of the most important truths in life–that success is about how hard you are willing to fight in order to overcome and in order to win.”

(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

“You believed in yourselves, you believed in each other, and you won a championship victory for the ages. It’s one of the greatest games I ever watched, actually,” the president added.

Trump continued to go on about the team’s head coach Dabo Swinney, who he praised for building his program into a “winning machine.”

Swinney also addressed the crowd and delivered one last motivational speech to his 2017 national championship squad at the ceremony.

He then thanked the president for welcoming them to the White House for such a special moment and presented him with two No. 1 Clemson jersey — one for the president, and the other for his son Barron.